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In Reply to: Re: ESL for SET? posted by Dave-A on July 9, 2006 at 13:01:22:
So then you have to choose either ESLs or SETs. I've made my choice ;)
Follow Ups:
Actually guys, I've pretty much proven (at least to myself) that you don't have to choose. After playing with PP for quite some time I tried a commercial 300B SET and was unimpressed. As a result it took me some years to rediscover how good SET can be and that occurred only as an evolutionary process.First I started modifying my huge PP ARC Ref600's with some great success ... choke, Triode Mode etc. Then I wondered whether smaller was better and bought a little Cary Signature Superamp. Anyway, after doing the rounds and auditioning all sorts of gear in my system since I have a great relationship with a top high end retailer here, I was sufficiently encouraged to give SET a fair go and set about building some serious 845s. BIG improvement over anything I had previously tried in my system including (and especially) some serious (and seriously expensive) class A and AB SS monos. This was the sound I wanted, the 845s stopped the "beaming", music became so 3 dimensional I couldn't believe it. Detail, dynamics, delicacy ... these amps had it all except for sufficient power. So I set about building some parallel SE 845s driven into A2 on peaks for around 70W or so.
A few years earlier no-one could have convinced me that parallel was good but this was another quantum leap. Perhaps it was mainly attributable to the simultaneous introduction of all tube rectification and better PS caps I surmised so I set about proving it. Easy to do ... I removed one 845 from each amp and changed the OP TX tapping accordingly and the sound went back to almost where I had it with my previous single 845s.
Big SETs can drive ESLs very well indeed. MLs love them but I must point out that my ESLs only handle frequencies above 180Hz. An array of 7" drivers handle mid bass and huge subs driven my high powered SS amps handle frequencies below 50Hz. I honestly can't tell you if this would be as successful with full range ESL's ... perhaps not. The questions I was asking about headroom and power trade-off were aimed at trying to better understand the reason I don't seem to have a problem with complex music. BTW, my speakers have an efficiency rating of about 90db m; fair but hardly high efficiency.
Dave, re your comment about the load that ESL's present to an amp; if you use a higher primary impedance, effectively a lower impedance tapping on your OP tranny, then speaker load is really don't an issue. You will obviously lose a little power but you gain better linearity to boot.
Naz
Thanks Naz.I have tried low eff speakers with SET amps, and agree that it still works [to a degree], but high eff is another world that I simply wish to encourage all tubies to taste/enter, because it really completes the paradigm IMHO. Of course I like the fact that HE allows me to use more simple, relatively lower power amps, and I have not heard an alternative to [Josh's] SET amps yet that convinces me to switch.
Even with a 106db speaker, I agree that higher power is the ticket. I just prefer to keep it simple and pure with [DIY] DHSET amplification throughout.
Later
D
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